insincere. I don't, however, make a crime of that,' she added, 'because if you don't believe what you say there's no reason why you should. I don't ruin myself for my friends; I don't deserve your praise. I care greatly for myself.'
'Exactly; but yourself includes so many other selves—so much of every one else and of everything. I never knew a person whose life touched so many other lives.'
'What do you call one's life?' asked Madame Merle. 'One's appearance, one's movements, one's engagements, one's society?'
'I call YOUR life your ambitions,' said Osmond.
Madame Merle looked a moment at Pansy. 'I wonder if she understands that,' she murmured.
'You see she can't stay with us!' And Pansy's father gave rather a joyless smile. 'Go into the garden, mignonne, and pluck a flower or two for Madame Merle,' he went on in French.
'That's just what I wanted to do,' Pansy exclaimed, rising with promptness and noiselessly departing. Her father followed her to the open door, stood a moment watching her, and then came back, but remained standing, or rather strolling to and fro, as if to cultivate a sense of freedom which in another attitude might be wanting.
'My ambitions are principally for you,' said Madame Merle, looking up at him with a certain courage.
'That comes back to what I say. I'm part of your life—I and a thousand others. You're not selfish—I can't admit that. If you were selfish, what should I be? What epithet would properly describe me?'
'You're indolent. For me that's your worst fault.'
'I'm afraid it's really my best.'
'You don't care,' said Madame Merle gravely.
'No; I don't think I care much. What sort of a fault do you call that? My indolence, at any rate, was one of the reasons I didn't go to Rome. But it was only one of them.'
'It's not of importance—to me at least—that you didn't go; though I should have been glad to see you. I'm glad you're not in Rome now—which you might be, would probably be, if you had gone there a month ago. There's something I should like you to do at present in Florence.'
'Please remember my indolence,' said Osmond.
'I do remember it; but I beg you to forget it. In that way you'll have both the virtue and the reward. This is not a great labour, and it may prove a real interest. How long is it since you made a new acquaintance?'
'I don't think I've made any since I made yours.'
'It's time then you should make another. There's a friend of mine I want you to know.'
Mr. Osmond, in his walk, had gone back to the open door again and was looking at his daughter as she moved about in the intense sunshine. 'What good will it do me?' he asked with a sort of genial crudity.
Madame Merle waited. 'It will amuse you.' There was nothing crude in this rejoinder; it had been thoroughly well considered.
'If you say that, you know, I believe it,' said Osmond, coming toward her. 'There are some points in which my confidence in you is complete. I'm perfectly aware, for instance, that you know good society from bad.'
'Society is all bad.'
'Pardon me. That isn't—the knowledge I impute to you—a common sort of wisdom. You've gained it in the right way—experimentally; you've compared an immense number of more or less impossible people with each other.'
'Well, I invite you to profit by my knowledge.'
'To profit? Are you very sure that I shall?'
'It's what I hope. It will depend on yourself. If I could only induce you to make an effort!'
'Ah, there you are! I knew something tiresome was coming. What in the world—that's likely to turn up here—is worth an effort?'
Madame Merle flushed as with a wounded intention. 'Don't be foolish, Osmond. No one knows better than you what IS worth an effort. Haven't I seen you in old days?'
'I recognise some things. But they're none of them probable in this poor life.'
'It's the effort that makes them probable,' said Madame Merle.
'There's something in that. Who then is your friend?'
'The person I came to Florence to see. She's a niece of Mrs. Touchett, whom you'll not have forgotten.'
'A niece? The word niece suggests youth and ignorance. I see what you're coming to.'
'Yes, she's young—twenty-three years old. She's a great friend of mine. I met her for the first time in England, several months ago, and we struck up a grand alliance. I like her immensely, and I do what I don't do every day—I admire her. You'll do the same.'
'Not if I can help it.'
'Precisely. But you won't be able to help it.'
'Is she beautiful, clever, rich, splendid, universally intelligent and unprecedentedly virtuous? It's only on those conditions that I care to make her acquaintance. You know I asked you some time ago never to speak to me of a creature who shouldn't correspond to that description. I know plenty of dingy people; I don't want to know any more.'
'Miss Archer isn't dingy; she's as bright as the morning. She corresponds to your description; it's for that I wish
